In Installing basic software, we show you what tools you need to do simple web development, and how to install them properly.

What tools do the professionals use?

A computer. Maybe that sounds obvious to some people, but some of you are reading this article on your phone or a library computer. For serious web development, it's better to invest in a desktop or laptop computer running Windows, macOS, or Linux.

Web browsers, to test code in. Currently, the most-used browsers are Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge. You should also test how your site performs on mobile devices and on any old browsers your target audience may still be using (such as IE 8–10.)

A version control system, to manage files on servers, collaborate on a project with a team, share code and assets, and avoid editing conflicts. Right now Git is the most popular version control system and the GitHub code hosting service, based on Git, is also very popular.

An FTP program, used on older web hosting accounts to manage files on servers (Git is increasingly replacing FTP for this purpose). There are loads of (S)FTP programs available including Cyberduck, Fetch, and FileZilla.

An automation system, like Grunt or Gulp to automatically perform repetitive tasks, such as minifying code and running tests.

Templates, libraries, frameworks, etc., to speed up writing common functionality.

More tools besides!

What tools do I actually need, right now?

That looks like a scary list, but fortunately, you can get started in web development without knowing anything about most of these. In this article, we'll just set you up with a bare minimum — a text editor and some modern web browsers.

Installing a text editor

You probably already have a basic text editor on your computer. By default Windows includes Notepad and macOS comes with TextEdit. Linux distros vary; Ubuntu comes with gedit by default.

For web development, you can probably do better than Notepad or TextEdit. We recommend starting with Brackets, which is a free editor that offers live previews and code hints.